Tuesday, May 24, 2005

I am Nomad

Yesterday I turned in the keys to my apartment and got my security deposit back, in full, from my lovely and fatherly landlord who was sorry to see me go. I'm moving away from my sweet, sweet solo abode where I shared a wall with my best friend/bandmate lisa dee and a courtyard with gentle brett lyda of the evangenitals. 5 people from my workplace lived in that building. 5 people that I actually liked. Out of 21 units, I called 7 of them friends. That's 1/3 of the building!

I have moved all of my belongings into a house in Duarte that is under renovation. Everything will be dusty upon my return. The garage is being rebuilt, the pool is being sandblasted, the backyard will be dug up and planted with grass, the kitchen will be gutted and re-done, a wall moved, a bathroom added. It will be a new house upon my return.

At 7:10pm this evening, god willing, a plane will be leaving LAX with me on it. That plane is headed for Milan, Italy, where I will find my hotel, spend a night, and take a train the next day to Saas-Fee, Switzerland to spend a wee bit shy of a month tucked away in the Alps studying Philosophy.

This term I'm supposed to pitch my definitive dissertation topic. I'm seriously stumped on this at the moment, as there's about 5 billion things I'd like to research/think about/write about and at the same time I'm plagued by this feeling of the unimportance of all things, excepting faith and love and health and cleanliness and happiness and wellbeing and taking care of each other and the world. There is some shame that comes with being such a bleepin' hippie at heart.

There is a book. It is called "Cradle to Cradle". I'm recommending it to everyone I know. It has brought me such a sense of excitement and hope it is wonderful wonderful. It is the future. It contains a solution. How to grow, thrive, consume, experience, build, expand, explore, create, and do no harm. It is something I've been struggling with for a long, long time. Brett turned me on to an interview in Newsweek with the guy and I just about crapped my pants with glee at the vision for a mo' better future that he has.

Limitless expansion. A broad road of happy destiny to trudge. That's what I got from his words. We don't have to "cut back" and "conserve"... we need to make better, kinder, more care-full any loving decisions, and run wild and free with the happy joyous and free energy of children. Do no harm. That's the mantra that's been rolling through my head and heart. Do no harm. Can I write a dissertation on that? Been thinking about Gandhi. Do no harm. It's hard not to step on ants and other people's toes sometimes. Do no harm. Progress not perfection.

I am off. I will miss my boyfriend. I will miss my band. I have my small guitar in hand, and I will be working hard to make myself a better everything for everyone. Especially me. I'm a selfish turkey.

Friday, May 13, 2005

I'm back to the old piracy impulse again....

Trying to make money makes me sad. When my focus is on finance, I'm just an irritated girl. It sucks. I always start to try to make money, and quickly burn out. It sucks, having that be the drive behind my action. I can't handle it. I just ain't motivated enough by the money, property, prestige. I'd rather take a walk and scrape change together for food. I wouldn't cut it in wall street.

I watched a documentary about Enron last night. It made me feel all claustrophobic and suspicious. People do some really shitty things sometimes. Listening to the assholes joke about turning California's power off, and all the money they cost us, and how they got Gray Davis booted out of office.... And then the extention of it all.... The unmentionable intentional nine to the eleventh. Scary poop.

There are many options. Staying small. Living large. Trusting god. Fighting the power. There have been many songs written about these options. Many books written. Many a pamphlet, pamphletted.

someday I'm going to have children (if the creek don't rise and the sun don't fall and my ovaries aren't bunk) how to deliver a world that doesn't blow ass? I don't know.

All's I know is that it has something to do with NOT being the guy who's willing to do evil.

My new neighbor's are Buddhists. I'm excited about that. For the first time ever if my neighbor's ask me if I want to go to church with them, I may say yes. That's exciting.

There is some dark shit going on in this world of ours. Darker than we can imagine. I was thinking about the fucking holocaust last night. How when it was happening, no one believed it. Nobody could imagine that people could be so evil. Guess what?

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Okay. Here we go.

The latest idea is that I'm going to start telling you guys about books that have the ability to rip my heart out of my ass, and you guys hopefully go buy that book by following the little linky that I'll provide, and then the Evangenitals get a percentage of the sale and we get to go on tour and live the dream of doing what makes one happy and making money doing it.

In the meantime, you'll get to hear about a lot of great books, and we can discuss them too, because this friggin' thing has a comments box, ya know. Oh yes it does.

So, first up: The Light That Failed by Rudyard Kipling

My friend Michael Blackman lent me a copy of this book. The cover had been torn off, as he had throw it across the room several times whilst reading it and kicked it down some European street in a fit of anger after finishing it. This book is totally and utterly unfair. It is as unfair as life often seems to be. Yet it is beautiful. It made me shake my fists at the heavens in rage. It did not make me cry. It is not a sappy, emotional book. It is harsh. And it's about art, so if you are into harsh and/or art, you will appreciate this book.

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About Me

My name is Juli and I'm the lead singer of the Evangenitals. I am also the "June Carter" to the world's premier Johnny Cash tribute band Cash'd Out. I am a Vegan and I am pretty damn happy to be alive. I've got a MFA in Directing experimental theater and I'm working on my PhD in Philosophy. I'm an ordained minister of the ULC and I believe in the power of Now, and the power of Love, and the power of Music. I believe in the spiritual revolution and I'm already marching.
P.S.
I believe in you.
Seriously.
And I love you, too.